n, and was duly denounced by public blast of trumpet for his
non-appearance. He entered Edinburgh with his forces, but failed to hold
the town against the guns of the castle, and fell back upon Dumfries
before the advance of the royal army, which was now joined by James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, on his return from a three years' outlawed
exile in France. He had been accused in 1562 of a plot to seize the
Queen and put her into the keeping of Earl of Arran, whose pretensions
to her hand ended only when his insanity could no longer be concealed.
Another new adherent was the son of the late Earl of Huntly, to whom the
forfeited honors of his house were restored a few months before the
marriage of his sister to Bothwell. The Queen now appealed to France for
aid; but Castelnau, the French ambassador, replied to her passionate
pleading by sober and earnest advice to make peace with the malcontents.
This counsel was rejected, and in October, 1565, the Queen marched an
army of eighteen thousand men against them from Edinburgh; their forces
dispersed in face of superior numbers, and Murray, on seeking shelter in
England, was received with contumely by Elizabeth, whose half-hearted
help had failed to support his enterprise, and whose intercession for
his return found at first no favor with the Queen of Scots.

But the conduct of the besotted boy, on whom at their marriage she had
bestowed the title of king, began at once to justify the enterprise and
to play into the hands of all his enemies alike. His father set him on
to demand the crown matrimonial, which would at least have assured him
the rank and station of independent royalty for life. Rizzio, hitherto
his friend and advocate, induced the Queen to reply by a reasonable
refusal to this hazardous and audacious request. Darnley at once threw
himself into the arms of the party opposed to the policy of the Queen
and her secretary--a policy which at that moment was doubly and trebly
calculated to exasperate the fears of the religious and the pride of the
patriotic. Mary was invited if not induced by the King of Spain to join
his league for the suppression of Protestantism; while the actual or
prospective endowment of Rizzio with Morton's office of chancellor, and
the projected attainder of Murray and his allies, combined to inflame at
once the anger and the apprehension of the Protestant nobles.

According to one account, Darnley privately assured his uncle George
Douglas of hi